An open letter to the lady occupying Room 507 on Saturday evening.

Dear Madam,

It was an excellent hotel, wasn’t it? No weasily pretending-to-be-concerned-about-the-environment ‘can we get away with not washing your towels’ notices. Nice bath things. Proper toilet roll, with the ends turned up into a little triangle.

For that money, you’d have expected all that.

A little soundproofing, however, wouldn’t have gone amiss.

When I first heard you, I thought I was imagining things. I was sitting on the toilet you see – my mind was elsewhere. The hum of the air conditioning was constant. But there you were again. Unmistakable.

I finished my business, and flushed. And then, I am ashamed to say, I switched the air conditioning off. I don’t know why. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

I can’t possibly describe the noise. I’ve tried every combination of vowels and aitches. Somewhere between ‘Ohhhh!!!!’ and ‘Eeeaaaahhh!!!!’ would be most accurate. Not loud, and muffled, but clearly screamed, belted, hollered. And so regular! Clockwork. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Ohhhh!!!! Eeeaaaahhh!!!! Ohhhh!!!! Eeeaaaahhh!!!!

The thing is – I really don’t want to be immature about this. We’re all adults here. But… but… it just drew me in. Once there, it was impossible not to listen. Impossible. Eeeaaaahhh!!!! Ohhhh!!!! The sheer joyous enthusiasm was a breath of fresh air in a cynical and indifferent world.

Two things I did not expect.

The first was the LTLP’s reaction.

“Christ – she’s not still going, is she?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they were at it when I arrived back from the shops.”

The LTLP had arrived back more than an hour previously. I had clearly had the TV on too high.

The second was when I walked out from our room to make my way to the bar. Whilst the party walls were providing a fair sound barrier between us, clearly the bedroom doors were performing no such function. Indeed, they seemed to be acting as an acoustic sounding board. Screams of hard-driven pleasure echoed round and along the corridor. Creaks. Thrusts. We hurried past.

Everybody looked up at us as we walked into the bar. I felt their eyes examining us. Wondering.

I located my friend Fred.

“Did you hear…?” we both exclaimed, simultaneously.

I write this not to embarrass you. I just – I just feel that we shared a moment. I wonder who you are, and what your story is. I hope that you enjoyed your trip to London, and always remember that evening with a smile and perhaps a little secret flush of enjoyment. If you are reading this, perhaps after searching Google for ‘attractive Norfolk blogger in London hotel bar’ or ‘name of bloke I shared room 507 with’ then I’d like to wish you all the very, very best.

Much later, I walked back to the room. I passed the two empty champagne bottles that you’d left outside for collection. You were silent and, I hope, at peace and satisfied.

To your wonderful future memories.

Your unknown friend,

JonnyB.

*

An open letter to the gentleman occupying Room 507 on Saturday evening.

Dear Sir,

Respect.

Yours,

JonnyB.

I have a groin strain!!!

A genuine 100% groin strain!!!

I am terribly excited. This is the first proper sporting injury I have ever had, if you don’t count last month’s mildly sore elbow, or a couple of broken fingers from cackhanded slip fielding. They were but mild inconveniences.

I sustained it on Friday, whilst beating Short Tony at tennis for the very first time. As we shook hands afterwards, he was sweating and knackered like the mediocre amateur he is, whilst I was jaunty and had a groin strain, like a real professional sportsman.

The LTLP and I sat and watched the Frank Skinner show on Friday night. Usually I empathise with Frank Skinner, as I am also very funny but an awkward and rubbish conversationalist when I meet celebrities. But this time I felt like I had much more in common with his star guest, Paula Radcliffe, who was the blonde lady who broke down and could not finish at the Olympic Games.

They replayed the footage of her bent double with pain and crying, her Olympic dream in shatters. I now know the agony that she was going through. (Although of course I went on to beat Short Tony, rather than just giving up).

Although she does not know me, I might write her a letter to cheer her up. It would be good for her to know that there are other people in the same situation as her. I would explain that, just as she fought back recently to triumph in another race – albeit one that nobody really knows or cares about – I would also be doing the same thing by challenging the LTLP next weekend.

And I would also put her troubles in perspective by saying that although she was badly dehydrated, she could get over that by just having a drink, whereas my groin strain will take a while to heal and possibly require massage, etc. She seems like a very nice lady and once she thinks about this, I am sure that she will be a lot happier and philosophical about her failure.

Thinking about it, now Emlyn Hughes has sadly passed away, there will be a vacancy for team captain on BBC’s popular and successful quiz show ‘A Question of Sport’.

I think with my amusing personality and groin strain I would be the ideal person to fill this role.

I shall write to Michael Grade with my suggestion.

The Village Pub, 10pm.

“It’s just the principle of the thing that gets me,” bemoaned Short Tony.

“Chill out,” I advised. “Everybody gets chucked out of a party once in their life.”

“Yes, but it’s my party and my house!”

“The girls really didn’t want us there, did they?” observed Keith the Woodman.

I took another swig of beer and surveyed the bar. Present: the four of us, two others and the Well Spoken Barman. Big A must have read my thoughts. “You have to make it more atmospheric in here,” he stated.

“Bloody right,” I interjected, backed up by four pints of Broadside. “The music in here, for instance. It’s shite.”

The Well Spoken Barman agreed, unoffended. “We do need to sort that out. We’ve only got CD’s that were free with The Mail on Sunday. You know about music. What do you recommend?”

Somebody is asking my opinion about music! I warmed to the chap immediately. There is nothing better one can do for a man than ask his opinion about music. I looked around the pub in an analytical fashion, determined to use my music-recommending responsibilities for the power of good.

“Well.” I replied eventually. “This is a pub/restaurant. And a sophisticated and not cheap one. What you need is some decent jazz. Not too mainstream, not pretentious, not the slickly produced stuff, not dinner jazz, yet melodic and perhaps funky. The stuff where you shut your eyes, and you’re transported to a sweaty, small and smoky basement bar, packed in a few feet away from the band and carried off by the music.”

Everybody looked at me, dead impressed.

“That’s great!” said the Well Spoken Barman. “Would you do me a favour? Write down the names of some CD’s and I’ll order them off Amazon?”

As we walked home I reflected that perhaps I had been slightly hasty in my subsequent agreement to become the Village Pub’s musical director. On my mental list so far was one album – Les McCann’s and Eddie Harris’s “Swiss Movement” – one of the greatest jazz albums ever made.

I can say this because a) it says on the insert that it’s one of the greatest jazz albums ever made; b) I have it and really enjoy it; and c) it’s the only jazz record I own, full stop, period, shoobeedoobeedoo.

The thing is, that I know nothing about jazz whatsoever. No. That’s not true. I know two things. Firstly, drummers prefer playing it. Secondly, bands start off playing a recognisable theme, then everybody takes it in turns to play what the fuck they like on instruments that should really be in a nice brass band, before somebody waves their hand and they play the recognisable theme again then stop and have a fag.

So I’m a bit stuck. I need to come up with a list before Saturday that veers a cool line between Jamie Cullum and wanky plinkity plonk wierdo shit. But that isn’t just things that everyone’s all heard before and are included on free CD’s given away with The Mail on Sunday.

Help!!! Any ideas?

What a fiasco.

Sorry for my absence today, everyone. No internet connection at all.

That’s my livelihood, that is.

It’s like they cut off my oxygen.

Now I’m a day behind.

See you tomorrow.

Insomnia!!!

Wrapping its greedy tentacles around me like a desperate divorcee at an over-40′s disco.

There is nothing on earth worse than not being able to sleep. I lie there, angry and stressed. I toss. I turn. I do some more tossing. I turn once more. Then I throw in another toss for good measure, before giving a little turn and lying on my back, hopeless and cross.

Ninety minutes later, I am still lying there, and I realise that I have exhausted the entertainment possibilities of studying the inside surface of my eyelids. They are featureless and boring.

There is no noise. Two cars have passed in the last hour, and even the local squeaky thing that lives outside the window seems to have tucked in early with a hot drink.

The LTLP is away for the night. Perhaps that is the problem. I am all alone except for Honey Bear and Peter the Hanging Monkey.

My bed is slightly larger than king sized, which is great as you can share it and have the warm sensation of being with somebody overnight without any of that physical contact stuff that girls like. Honestly, it’s really really big – it would comfortably fit me and the LTLP, plus, Kirstie Allsopp, Alison Goldfrapp and at a pinch, Daisy Sampson and Laura Kuenssberg from The Daily Politics to pick some people at random. (Although if they were all there, I would have to back down and have physical contact – it’s not that big.)

That thought exaggerates the emptiness more.

We lie there – me, Honey Bear and Peter the Hanging Monkey.

I start thinking about things. This is always a mistake, thinking about things. It further activates my racing brain. Am I hungry? Not sure. Do I want to go for a wee wee? I didn’t, but now I can’t tell. Are there aliens elsewhere in the universe? It would be interesting if there were.

A crumb of comfort – at least it gives me something to write about. I think of a very funny ‘Insomnia! Insomnia! They’ve all got it in-somnia!’ joke, and wonder how I can work it in to a post without appearing contrived.

Then I must have gone to sleep.

Unexpected break – I need to go into London at the last minute, so haven’t got time to write about insomnia.

I’ll do that tomorrow. It will probably start like this:

Insomnia!!!

And I’ll probably do some sort of “Insomnia! Insomnia! They’ve all got it in-somnia!” joke.

That one needs work.

In my absence, try Chase Me, Ladies. It’s terribly good.

Smoke!!!

It’s everywhere. Filling up the loft space with its smoky smokiness. Again, my chimney seems to be failing in its primary purpose.

This time I am prepared, and, having extinguished the trial fire in the grate, I head upstairs with my new secret weapon – an aerosol can excitingly labelled ‘No More Big Gaps’.

(I had previously noticed a big gap, you see).

The ‘No More Big Gaps’ stuff is very exciting. You spray it in a big gap, and it sort of foams up dramatically in order to fill said aperture.

I think the best way I can probably describe it to the average reader is that it’s extremely like the foam injection filler in ‘Space Fall’, the second episode of BBC TV’s ‘Blake’s Seven’ series, that automatically sealed the space between the inner and outer skin of the prison ship ‘London’ on the accidental puncturing of its hull.

Mindful of what happened to the unfortunate rebel caught in the foam onslaught, I am extremely cautious. I wear the free polythene gloves provided, and make sure that there is a straight and uncluttered escape route from where I am standing back to the loft hatch. That way, if the ‘No More Big Gaps’ expands more than expected, to fill the whole loft space, I should be OK, and not end up cocooned forever amongst old furniture and boxes.

I don’t know if the makers of Blake’s Seven get royalties from this product, but they really should do. They had a lot of good ideas, like transporting criminals to the planet Cygnus Alpha rather than giving them anti social behaviour orders. Honestly, if Michael Howard really wanted to make an impact on the electorate he would appoint Servalan as Shadow Home Secretary and give everybody teleportation bracelets to solve our transport problems and end our reliance on Saudi oil.

Truly the man has no imagination whatsoever.